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Take a Character to Lunch

January 29, 2006

While horse-sitting in a place where Morgana IV and her myriad distractions are not, I've been rereading Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands / La Frontera. I first read it within a year or two of its publication by Spinsters/Aunt Lute, in 1987; I know it made a major impression, because it's been lodged in my mind and heart ever since, but I made very few marks on its pages so there's no record of what particular lines and images struck me then, or of the running commentary that was surely going on in my head.

This leapt off the page today:

. . . the work has an identity; it is a "who" or a "what" and contains the presences of persons, that is, incarnations of gods or ancestors or natural and cosmic powers. The work manifests the same need as a person, it needs to be "fed," la tengo que bañar y vestir (p. 67)

My work, The Mud of the Place in particular, wants to be invited to dinner, to dance -- I want people to hug my characters and argue with them and introduce them to friends: "This is the one I told you about." Take a character to lunch, or out for a walk on the beach. Give her or him a piece of your mind. (Don't be surprised if they talk back.)

Listen to them. Speak to them. Don't let any reviewer or teacher or talk-show host tell you how to respond or what to respond to. You don't let them tell you how to treat your friends, do you?

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